


Corpse Flower

by Kingmaking



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Canon-Typical Underage, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, F/M, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, House Targaryen, In some bc Lyanna is 15/16, Lyanna Stark Lives, Minor Robert Baratheon/Lyanna Stark, Mother-Daughter Relationship, References to Depression, Sister-Sister Relationship, Some are Not Shippy, Targaryen Incest, dub-con, or even cute, poor decision-making
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingmaking/pseuds/Kingmaking
Summary: Lives in which Lyanna Stark was born to a different Great House, earning a different name, different hopes, and often a different fate along the way.2 --- Lorra Baratheon





	1. Liandra Martell

**Author's Note:**

> Each of these is pretty much gonna be a different take on Lyanna/Rhaegar and R+L=J. In some they run away together, in some they marry, in some ???  
>    
>  Warning for canon-typical Underage and possible dub-con in some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The AUs were originally supposed to be X number of 100-word drabbles, but when does planning ever work ,,,

How can they dub Liandra a miracle from the day of her birth and expect her not to grow prideful? She  _is_ a miracle, in truth, more so than Elia and Oberyn. Born half into the Princess’s forty-sixth year, nine years after Oberyn, nineteen years after Doran. Mother never does recover from Liandra’s birth, although she would never admit it. The youngest princess in Dorne becomes the shadow of her elders, racing other children on her brother’s shoulders, climbing trees to bring Elia lemons and oranges, even finding ways to make solemn Doran smile, whenever he’s not traveling the world.

When he does have time for her, Doran tentatively allows her to climb in his lap and shares wild tales of the Princess Aliandra, the woman Liandra was named for. They dropped the _A_ , though, and eventually they drop _Li_ , so that she’s Andra. Not Father, though. Father only ever called her Liaaa, but he’s dead before she’s turned six, the year after they return from Casterly Rock. There, the Princess introduced her children to a lion. Andra doesn’t remember much from the Rock or the journey itself, except that Mother left angry, and that Elia wept about some babe.

She _hated_ the Rock, with the wind and the hostile sea. Mother leaves her and Elia at the Water Gardens on the way home, and there Andra races Santagars, Fowlers and Gargalens, plays in the water and declares that she’s to marry into House Dayne, so that she can bear Dawn. They hear about Oberyn and Lord Yronwood, a duel at first light, but Andra knows not to worry, and even convinces Elia to come swim with them once news arrives that Oberyn won. She eventually discovers that Lord Yronwood sickened and screamed himself to death, but her pride stays.

They say Elia and Liandra could be twins, if there wasn’t a decade between them, and if Elia’s health was better; both have the Princess’s black eyes, both have her dark hair, but Andra’s is curly as sin. Growing up, though, Andra comes to resemble Oberyn, with a wicked grin and widow’s peak. She even has Oberyn’s competitive (mean?) streak, and Mother says it’s why half the children in the Water Gardens despise her… and the other half worship her. Doran is loved for his wisdom, Elia for her kind heart, Oberyn for his bravery; what about her, the miracle?

They keep the news of Mother’s death from Andra for a week. When she’s finally told, it’s through some mistake on Ryon Allyrion’s part. While her elders scowl, Andra runs to her chambers and hides under her bed, until Elia comes to find her. But Andra refuses to get out, and eventually her sister is lying on the floor, a skinny arm reaching for her. She’s coaxed back on her feet, and this isn’t how princesses of Dorne should behave, but Elia has never chided her for anything. She doesn’t start now, instead holding Andra close as they cry together.

Andra’s memory of her father has faded over time, terrible as that is, and the same is sure to happen with Mother. Doran has always been more paternal with her than brotherly, because two decades separate them, and because he’s the calm, tempered green sea that stretches over the horizon, and she’s the storm. Doran’s saying, and Doran’s idea. Wouldn’t Andra the miracle, Andra the storm, like to marry a Stormlord? It makes her frown and wrinkle her nose, then ask: _Why not Elia?_ It’s Elia who dreams of marriage and babes; Andra dreams of adventures, unruly seas and freedom.

Elia is the only constant of Andra’s life, truly. The Princess and her consort are together now, with Mors and Olyvar, but they’ve left _her_ behind. Doran has wed and fathered a daughter before she’s ten, and even though she adores Mellario and little Arianne, Andra mourns her place as the baby of the family, the pet. And Oberyn has a lover in every port, and soon a brood of daughters to prove it, splashing around in the Water Gardens the way Andra once did. She turns eleven and twelve, and then is told that Elia is to be queen.

 _I don’t like the Prince_ , Andra says, but only ever to Oberyn and pretty Lady Ashara. They journey together to King’s Landing for the wedding, and throughout Andra sees very little of Elia, busy with her betrothed. He’s so _pale_ , the Prince, and his eyes are unnerving; they much resemble Ashara’s, but Ash has a warmth to her that Rhaegar Targaryen doesn’t share. It’s worse once the wedding has come and gone, and worse once Elia gives birth to Rhaenys. Andra cherishes the babe, of course, but the King doesn’t, and the Dornish party is made to feel it strongly.

Prince Rhaegar is delighted with the child, but Andra soon learns the unpleasant truth behind that, sitting in Elia’s solar with Ashara. She’s cradling Rhaenys, and the Prince is speaking of Aegon, Visenya, dragons and old tales, a prophecy or promise. He says he must have Rhaenys, Aegon, Visenya, like the Conquerors, but the birth of a single child has left Elia northron-pale and feverish. If Andra was a miracle, so is Rhaenys, and the Prince’s talk of two more children is a folly. Andra hates Rhaegar for it, spending her days cuddled with Elia until her sister is better.

Doran isn’t yet in any hurry to have Andra wed Robert Baratheon, and she’s grateful for it. It unnerves her, the way he’s always looking more at her body than her face. And on the prince’s nameday, when they go hawking, Robert gapes and roars with laughter at her riding leathers, her purebred Dornish courser, her _savage_ ways. The day Andra wins in a playful race with Ser Arthur, the knight smiles; Robert thunders when he’s beaten, like a little boy. She doesn’t mind the whoring, doesn't mind the daughter he sired in the Vale, but the rest of him?

There’s freedom, in Dorne, but not the sort of freedom that could let a man crown his wife’s sister as his Queen of Love and Beauty. What kind of girl does he think she is? This is more embarrassing than when Oberyn caught her kissing a Santagar boy, more embarrassing than when Ser Arthur overheard her calling him _stunning_. Rhaegar is looking at her intently, expectantly -- and so are nigh a thousand other people, but Andra can only look at Elia. From the corner of her eye, without really turning, until Elia disappears into blurry shadows and her eyes ache.

 _I did nothing_ , Andra writes Doran, but his reply is addressed to _Liandra_ , and he’s set a date for her wedding. Andra has spent her every waking hour with Elia, on the road back from Harrenhal, until they reached King’s Landing and her sister announced that she was expecting and needed rest. Time away from the mean gossip of court and (this Elia never says, but Andra knows anyway) time away from her. She wishes _someone_ would understand, but Oberyn has gone back to Sunspear, Doran isn’t answering her letters, and even bloody Robert Baratheon frowns whenever he sees her.

Andra leaves King’s Landing angry, riding south without a look back. She does speak to Rhaegar before she leaves, and to Elia, but hears only about _prophecy_ from the prince, and her sister is thin-lipped and devastated, because she doesn’t understand. Andra wishes she could, herself, if only to make stupid Robert understand that she isn’t wanton and dishonorable enough to betray her own sister like this, if only so she can earn smiles from Elia, smiles from Oberyn and Doran. She’s resting at Felwood, days away from Storm’s End and her wedding, when the Prince catches up to her.

She follows him because he brought Ser Arthur. She follows him, because he says that Elia’s time nears, and she’s asked to have her sister at her side. She follows him, because he says the birth of his Aegon has been foretold, and it’s not something Andra should frown at, even in her anger. She follows him; Doesn’t ask _why_ , doesn’t think of it. She doesn’t say that she fears Elia might not survive another childbirth. She doesn’t protest when they stop to rest in the Kingswood and share a tent, because hasn’t the Prince expressed his concern (Andra has decided it’s _love_ ) for Elia?

He doesn’t touch her, not at first. They reach King’s Landing to hear that Elia has given birth to a son (Aegon of prophecy) and is now lingering near death; but the Prince doesn’t let Andra go to her, instead tasking Ser Arthur with escorting her to Dragonstone. _Dragonstone?_ Rhaegar promises to send Elia to her, once she’s recovered, but Elia has need of her _now_. Her pleas are ignored. The ship is called the _Lady Dawn_ , and she makes cruel fun of Ser Arthur over it until they get in sight of Dragonstone, that ugly pile of bewitched rock.

The first raven comes the following week, when Andra has almost managed to convince herself that she may yet come back from this, that Elia won’t despise her forever. It’s from Rhaegar, with no word of Elia or the babe in it; the Prince announces that Robert threatened King Aerys and has been executed for it, cooked in his own armor. _Cooked?_ Andra cannot mourn him, not while she’s busy worrying about Elia and her children, not while Oberyn might yet do exactly what Robert did, when news reaches Sunspear that she vanished from the Kingswood with her sister’s husband.

Stannis Baratheon has called his banners to avenge his brother, of course; so do Jon Arryn in the Vale and Stark in the North, the men declaring that King Aerys’ rule of tyranny must be ended. Andra doesn’t hear from her family (do they even know she’s here, on Dragonstone?), but she does hear from Rhaegar. And sees him; the Prince shores up on Dragonstone with the evening tide, a fortnight after Robert’s death, and the web he spins in front of Andra’s eyes would have captured any girl of fifteen. It begins with Elia in a bed of blood.

"It would be a bastard, not a Targaryen."  
"She would be my daughter, your sister’s daughter."  
"Your daughter? How can you know it’d be a girl?"  
"Visenya. A third head for our dragon. Elia cannot be the one to birth her, she wouldn’t survive. You know that. True, my Princess?"  
_I’m not your princess. I’m not your anything_. And how can it be Elia’s dragon, if she can be discarded that easily? But to Prince Rhaegar, Andra says: "I know."  
"It’s been foretold, Liandra. This is how it must be."  
If this can save Elia from death, so be it.

Andra closes her eyes and pictures Ser Arthur inside, atop her, pictures any man who isn’t her sister’s husband. Prince Rhaegar is silent, dutiful, almost gentle, but his talk of prophecy is ringing in Andra’s ears, and the discomfort leaves her weeping, after he leaves. Only after; she would never cry in front of him, not when he’s decided she’s to be the mother of his child -- Elia’s child, a child of prophecy, who soon begins stretching the skin of Andra’s belly, angry lines of red and white. She hears of battles on the continent, hears of her uncle Lewyn marching ahead of the Dornish army, wastes entire days watching the gates of Dragonstone, hoping Oberyn might come for her. Hoping, not praying -- the Seven Above never did listen to Andra, and now that she’s betrayed her sister… _No_. The child would be Elia’s, the child would be a girl, a Visenya for Aegon to marry, the little Prince Aegon she’s never seen. Prince Rhaegar has promised her it would be alright, and when she’d asked _What of your father?_ , he’d… He’d shamed and betrayed his wife; what might he be able to do to his father? Worse, to her?

Andra discovers that Visenya likes the sound of her singing. She discovers that she despises seafood, now; That she can barely lift Dawn; That more often than not, there’s frost on her breath in the early hours of morning; That Ser Arthur has found a midwife for her, along with a wet nurse, and both are the wives of fishermen who are cousins. _I was born in a palace; Elia’s children were born in the Red Keep, and my -- our -- child is to be delivered… here_. But Ser Arthur has been kind. Andra loves him for it, on most days.

A letter comes from Elia:  
_Andra,_  
_Once the war is over, go home to Sunspear, not the city. I promise to meet you there._  
_I love you_  
If they know she’s here, why hasn’t Oberyn come for her?  
Rhaegar slays young Stannis on the river, like everybody knew he would, but Stannis leaves him wounded, and some Vale lordling finishes him, after cutting down Uncle Lewyn. This, Andra hears from Arthur, who’s preparing the _Lady Dawn_ to leave for Sunspear. She turns sixteen the day before the _Lady Dawn_ runs into the Redwyne fleet, near the coast of Storm’s End.

There’s no hiding her predicament, not anymore. Mace Tyrell leaves Andra’s care to some tiny lady by the name of Arwyn Oakheart, who rambles at length about her own sons for a while before the idea to ask who the baby’s father is strikes her. Lying has never come easy to Andra, but it does now, because Rhaegar is dead and Elia might be in lethal danger, and there’s nothing both she and Ser Arthur want more than Elia’s safety. And so Andra says: "Arthur Dayne, my lady, the Sword of the Morning, my knight." Lady Oakheart isn’t stupid, but Mace Tyrell is. That would account for purple eyes and silver-gold hair, but what if the babe (Visenya? Rhaegar is dead; so must be his prophecy) goes mad, like his sire and grandsire? This is a fear Andra has to keep for herself, even as Lady Oakheart, calling her _Child_ , orders her own men to keep maesters and midwives nearby. Ser Arthur never leaves Andra’s side, more like a guard than a lover; if Lady Oakheart’s people suspect anything, they don’t say it. A sort of silent resentment is swelling between her and her knight, as surely as her belly.

"Lucamore Strong was gelded and forced to become a brother of the Night’s Watch for this very crime I’ve confessed to. For you, Princess Liandra."  
"For Elia, Ser. It’s for Princess Elia. You may not like me, but we’re helping my sister with this." What does he think of her, Andra wonders? He’s sworn to protect the innocent, and the babe in her belly is surely that. "And once the war is over, my brother can protect you."  
And people may yet look upon her child and say _Rhaegar_. She’d just keep lying. Tyrell’d heard _Arthur Dayne_ , but she’d look the High Septon in the eye and say _Jaime Lannister_ , or _Jon Connington_ , or any Dornish lord. The rest of the kingdoms would name her a slut and sneer at her bastard, but there’d be safety in Dorne.  
She only had to get there, and then make Elia forgive her.

The castellan of Storm’s End surrenders the castle in the name of Lord Renly, six years of age. Nobody knows what to do with the boy; nobody knows what’s happening in King’s Landing, and nobody knows what to do with _her_ , with Arthur standing watch and men from both sides marching on the capital. Andra’s time nears, and soon even leaving her bed (Robert’s bed; they’ve given her Robert’s bedchamber) is an ordeal. She’s with little Renly, listening as he describes how very hungry they were, until his castellan surrendered, when they hear about King Aegon and his regent, Elia.

Andra hears the story of how Rhaegar’s army -- led by Barristan Selmy, missing a prince and two brothers in the Kingsguard -- reached King’s Landing to find the city surrounded by Tywin Lannister. She hears, from Renly, that a _dragon_ threatened Lannister, and that’s why the Lion Lord eventually let Ser Barristan through. But the dragons are gone, and when Ser Barristan and Lord Tywin walked into King Aerys’s Throne Room, they found the man dead. And Elia sat on the Iron Throne, and in her lap was the infant Aegon. At her side was Jaime Lannister, bloody sword in hand.

Confined to Robert’s bed in Robert’s bedchamber, Andra hears about Elia, the King’s Mother. She hears of how Jon Arryn and Hoster of Riverrun were executed, but Rickard Stark and his eldest sons have traded the headsman’s axe for the Night’s Watch. Stark’s youngest son now rules in Winterfell, and Tully’s young son in Riverrun; both are expected to come to King’s Landing soon, hostages of the Iron Throne. The Ironborn have been removed from the Reach and Tywin Lannister has been sent back to Casterly Rock, shamed for his neutrality. There’s been peace for no more than a fortnight when Andra’s labor begins.

In her fever, Andra dreams of her brothers; Oberyn come to rescue her, Doran come to sentence Prince Rhaegar to death. She dreams of Elia, saying: _I forgive you_. She dreams of a girl with hair of silver-gold, Visenya whom the Prince so-wanted, but somewhere amidst her screams and her begging -- _I don’t want to die!_ But they’re ripping a child from her body, she hears the midwives Lady Oakheart found say: "It’s a boy, Princess." And so Andra laughs. She laughs, until the maesters pour milk of the poppy into her mouth, and she craves nothing else but sleep.

Oberyn is fighting with Arthur behind the door, but he wins -- her brother always wins, although he comes in red in the face, rushing to Andra’s bedside. "So it’s true," he says, and for a moment Andra doesn’t understand, until she remembers: the babe. Not Visenya, not the princess Rhaegar had dreamed of, no third head for his dragon. Olyvar Sand (Waters? _Blackfyre_?), who resembles Andra so much that maybe he needn’t have a father. Black hair, black eyes, golden skin and -- she could swear it -- a widow’s peak. Mother and babe sleep as Oberyn cradles them, rage melted away.

Andra isn’t strong enough to leave Storm’s End for another moon’s turn. When she does, it’s with Oberyn and Renly, who’s now a hostage of the Crown as much as Benjen Stark, Edmure Tully, and the newborn daughter of the late Denys Arryn. They’ve switched galleys; the _Lady Dawn_ is bringing them up to King’s Landing, while Ser Arthur, aboard the _Aliandra_ that brought Oberyn here, is bringing Olyvar _home_ to Sunspear. There’s nothing Andra could want more than home, right now, except for Elia’s love. Thus, she follows Oberyn into stinking King’s Landing, the city left unchanged by war.

The Red Keep is filled with Tyrells, Darrys, Dornishmen and every Crownlord; the Red Keep is filled with _laughter_ , but Andra can make silence take over, whenever she goes. Not everyone knows she’s been pregnant, but everyone knows she eloped with (was abducted by?) her sister’s husband. But Rhaegar is dead, King Aerys is dead, and the city isn’t nearly as _red_ as she remembered. Little Prince Viserys is alright, if confused; Rhaenys is babbling happily, and King Aegon is ruling from his nursery. And Queen Rhaella, great with child, has gone to Dragonstone for her confinement. It leaves Elia.

Andra has never wept so much as she does when finally, finally, _finally_ she reunites with Elia, after nigh a year. She never did fully recover from Aegon’s birth, and it shows in places (her face, her eyes), but Andra embraces her and can almost pretend they’re in Dorne, in Sunspear, or even at the Water Gardens; she can pretend it’s _alright_ , until Elia says, without stepping away: "Did he force you?"  
"He spoke of a prophecy. He told me you would die. I…"  
"Not a beast, then. Good, good. Maybe I can yet mourn him." Then: "I told you to go to Sunspear once the war had been won, didn’t I?"  
"Sunspear isn’t where you are. I needed to be with you. I needed to say..."  
"I know, Lia. I know."  
Later, once Andra has wept some more and Elia has tucked her into bed, like a child, she wakes to find her sister cuddled next to her, with Rhaenys and tiny Aegon. Rhaenys is awake, but she cannot understand, and so Andra says: "I told Arwyn Oakheart that Ser Arthur was my lover. That’s not true."  
Elia chuckles. Chuckles! It’s a wondrous sound. "I’ve heard that already. I’ve heard a dozen names, in truth. A scandal worthy of Aliandra, though I doubt she was fifteen when they put forth a hundred men as her lovers." Her eyes widen. "Sixteen! Were Mother alive, I have no doubt it would make her feel better."  
Sarcasm was always her own weapon, not Elia’s, but Andra doesn’t mind. "You’re not angry with me, then?"  
Elia is silent for a long moment. It’s what Andra deserves; she’s ready to endure it. Eventually: "I mourn the life you could’ve had. A husband. I mourn for brash Robert and our Uncle Lewyn. And I mourn for the love I once had for Rhaegar, but the fault, the blame…? It’s not yours to bear."  
"Whose, then?"  
Elia kisses her brow. "I’m a Regent of the future, sweet Andra. Sleep now, and tomorrow you can help me with it."  
For once, Andra Martell does as she’s told.  
  
Andra doesn’t stay in King’s Landing long, boarding the _Lady Dawn_ on the last day of 283, headed for Sunspear and her son. He’s not the girl his father thought he’d be; he’s not a child of prophecy. He’s simply a boy, Dornish through and through, and in the coming years Andra watches him swim and play in the Water Gardens, like she once did. He’s surrounded by Oberyn’s daughters, who beat him at every game, but Olyvar never seems to mind. Dorne loves her as the princess they feared they’d lost, and they love Oly in turn. He follows Oberyn like a shadow, gathers flowers for Arianne, her mother and Ellaria, calling her daughters his _tiny cousins._ He dreams of the Kingsguard, but never of dragons; he fosters at Starfall, and declares his wish to marry Allyria Dayne. Nothing about him is even remotely Rhaegar’s, even when he’s standing next to Rhaenys or Aegon. Andra is thankful for it. Olyvar is her son, not the child of some prophecy; his future is his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 14/01 Next one is gonna feature Baratheon!Lyanna, and it's getting so... ridiculously... long...


	2. Lorra Baratheon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got so long and I don't really understand (!!!)  
>  Ft. a Veeery open ending + a break from the original formula, but after this one it's back to our runaway bride.

Lorra has learned to elude both Stannis and Maester Cressen, when she’s wandering the castle after hours. Sometimes, it’s to steal dessert, or to practice archery in the inner courtyard, the one nobody ever watches. Other times, as is the case tonight, it’s to eavesdrop on her father and lady Mother. She _knows_ they’re keeping something from them -- the children --, because more ravens are flying in and out Storm’s End than usual, and her mother won’t stop worrying the emerald ring at her middle finger. Tonight, however, Lorra doesn’t hear anything good: Lord and Lady Baratheon are discussing the King.

"... so close to Aerys," Father is saying. Lorra pictures the beard and the graying temples. She pictures her mother, with freckles and green eyes, like House Estermont’s turtle.  
"... mean to refuse him?" Lorra can almost hear the emerald ring, turning and turning.  
"We can’t. Aerys turned down Tywin’s daughter… _Joanna_ ’s daughter. And he turned down Loreza’s... It can only mean..."  
"Prince Rhaegar is a good lad, by every account," says Mother. "I can go to King’s Landing myself… Bring Stannis."  
"... think Lorra would like that?"  
"Stannis? Not likely. But me... I’m her mother. I won’t let harm come to her."

Her father isn’t a Targaryen, not really, but his mother was a princess and the King is his cousin. Lorra remembers her grandmother Rhaelle in flashes of silver and purple, gentle singing and this regal, elegant bearing she couldn’t replicate, herself, if they let her try for ten years. But Princess Rhaelle is gone, as is her brother King Jaehaerys, Father’s uncle. Father spent his youth with the current King, but what of it? Lorra spent her youth with _Stannis_ , a brood of Estermont cousins and proud Ravella Swann. She knows one thing: Lord Steffon is scared of the King.

(Nigh forty years ago, Prince Duncan eloped with a commoner rather than marry the Laughing Storm’s daughter; what if Lorra isn’t good enough for Prince Rhaegar? This fear, Lorra shares with Robert, and only with Robert. Her brother says: _Then I’d have to rebel and kick his arse, wouldn’t I?_ )

Lorra’s betrothal is announced on her twelfth nameday. She’s excited -- truly! Until Stannis and Robert start fighting over it. Would she be allowed to bring her bow? Would she be allowed to hunt in the Kingswood, or go to Dragonstone and Driftmark? If she had a son and daughter, would they be made to marry? Robert says _Yes_ , Stannis _No_. As much as she loves her oldest brother, Lorra misses his years in the Vale -- away. There, he’d grown close to Lord Arryn and Ned Stark, the lord’s ward. Good influences, according to Maester Cressen, but Robert would never change.

Truth is, she liked having Storm’s End for herself, back when Robert was in the Vale. Stannis was there, of course, but he kept to his end of the castle and Lorra kept to hers. Of everyone in Storm’s End -- everyone in the whole wide world, probably --, only Stannis has no time for Lorra and her ‘antics’, namely horseriding and shooting bows and singing and swimming in unruly waters on Estermont and gossiping and enjoying _life_ , really; only Stannis ever says _No_ to her. Sometimes Lorra despises him for it; sometimes she does her best to earn smiles, rarely succeeding.

Before Lorra’s wedding comes Robert’s. Her brother is only seventeen, but he’s to be Lord of Storm’s End, and Father wasn’t pleased to hear about the bastard he sired in the Vale. Before that, only good had come from Robert’s time as Lord Arryn’s ward. He’d even been in the middle of matching Lorra with Ned Stark (or was it Ned Stark’s brother?), when Father and Mother had started talking about King’s Landing and Prince Rhaegar. Lorra mourned the idea of Winterfell and the North. She wouldn’t even have minded the cold (they have summer-hot gardens, in the North, and they wear furs and leathers), not if what Maester Cressen had told her about Winterfell proved true. Northern women could ride into battle and carry weapons. It wouldn’t be the case in King’s Landing, that was for sure. They would demand she be like Queen Rhaella, more Naerys than Visenya.

King Aerys refused Cersei Lannister for his son. He refused Elia Martell, the Dornish princess -- much to House Baratheon’s advantage, if one listens to Cressen. The princess is kind and gentle, they say, and Lorra isn’t convinced Robert deserves such a wife, but Father and the Princess of Dorne want concord in the Marches. Shortly after Lorra’s nameday, the family -- Renly aside -- board the _Lady Alyssa_ and the _Windproud_. The _Alyssa_ is smaller, and should reach Sunspear a bit sooner, if the weather doesn’t change. Robert and Stannis have to share quarters, but Lorra is given her own. That is, Lady Ravella is also there, but she would never fight Lorra the way Stannis does Robert, and so the first part of the journey goes very smoothly. Ravella is a _proper lady_ , who stays cooped up inside while Lorra wanders the deck. The _Alyssa_ is different from the narrow galleys Lorra is used to, the ones they use to visit Estermont and Tarth. This one can house them for nigh a week and does so, as they slowly move past Greenstone and the Dornish coast, until Sunspear appears in the distance, yellow and orange and red on the golden sand.

Between them and Sunspear comes the storm. Twice, _Lady Alyssa_ is separated from the _Windproud_ ; twice, the _Windproud_ reappears on the horizon. Storms are common near the Stepstones, men say, ushering Lorra, her brothers and Ravella back inside. Angry waves rise and come breaking on the _Alyssa_ , and the sky darkens until Sunspear disappears. They choke on salt and wind, and the Dornish coast is getting further away, until a stronger wind, come from the east, shoves _Alyssa_ to shore. They’re somewhere between Sunspear and the Water Gardens, drenched and freezing cold. The Dornish find them in no time, led by the Princess’s younger son. Prince Oberyn makes light of the Alyssa’s wreck, because everyone is accounted for. This is before they look out to sea, in time to watch as the Windproud, as if caught between two storms, collapses upon herself, a howling of breaking wood and dying men.

/

They stay there. Lorra could swear they’re silent and unmoving, but they do move. Lady Ravella takes Lorra by the arm, leading her inside the safety of the Water Gardens. There’s no such thing as _inside_ , at the gardens, and they sit on a balcony overlooking the sea. Lorra watches for the _Windproud_ ; Ravella untangles her wet hair, coaxes her into trading her wet gown (dark blue, soaked in salt) for a dry one. Dark gray, and eventually soaked in salt from Lorra’s crying, because the sky has cleared and the _Windproud_ is nowhere in sight. Prince Oberyn is looking at them with _pity_ , and it’s a terrible look on a man (boy?) of such repute. That night, overdressed for the Dornish weather, Lorra watches, side by side with Robert, Stannis, Ravella and the Prince, as flotsam washes ashore. They don’t find the first body until two days later, though.

Lorra had been excited for the Dornish climate, the red horses and the sun-baked dunes, the spiced food and the loose, comfortable silk people here wear. She’d been excited to meet her future sister, the Princess Elia. She’d been excited to visit Sunspear and be able to say, in a decade or two, that she’d been there, done that. This isn’t what happens. What happens is: the Princess arrives the day after the _Windproud_ is destroyed, and the day after that, they find Septa Kella on the beach. Lorra’s septa, who should have been on the _Alyssa_ , but wasn’t. Lorra doesn’t know why; Lorra doesn’t know _how_ , and can hardly remember anything of the day they left Storm’s End. She wakes screaming for Renly, before remembering that he’s back home, and safe; she wakes screaming for Mother, and doesn’t find sleep until many hours later, clinging to Ravella like a…

Drowning man.

The Princess of Dorne and Lorra share a golden litter. She wanted to ride, in truth, but her brothers are outside the litter, awkward on purebred Dornish coursers, and Lorra cannot bear to look at them. Robert is angry; Stannis hasn’t spoken a word since the day before yesterday. Lorra wishes for a middle ground, but there isn’t any. The Princess says: "We may yet find more people, child." She doesn’t say _dead_ , but it’s been two days and Lorra, when they go swimming on Estermont, can only stay underwater for half a minute before she has to come up.

The castellan of Sunspear addresses Robert as _Lord Baratheon_. They haven’t found anyone new.

"I want to go home," says Lorra. Stannis glares at her, but it’s better than his silence of the last days. He doesn’t shy away when Lorra goes to him, because Robert has been very busy writing letters home -- home? What is _home_ , now? -- to Maester Cressen and the nobility, and he’s _seventeen_ , and not a week ago wasn’t expected to become Lord of Storm’s End until twenty years, at least. No, more; Lorra had never given her father’s death any thought. And Mother… Mother would live forever, and follow Lorra to King’s Landing as she’d promised, and watch as she became queen and bore silver-haired children for Prince Rhaegar. She’d protect her, and love her, and now she was dead at the bottom of the sea. _This is a bad dream_. She would awake in her bed in Storm’s End, go play with Renly, swim and ride and sing.

But no.

They were meant to stay in Dorne for over a moon’s turn, before the storms came and went, but now Robert and the Princess Elia are to be hastily wed, and the Dornish are preparing another fleet to escort them home. There’s no way Lorra is setting foot on another boat anytime soon, of course, but she doesn’t bother Robert with that, not yet. She’s given what she wanted: a warm climate, horses gifted from one Lord Jordayne, sand under her feet, food such as she’s never tasted, and silken dresses for the wedding, in Baratheon yellow and blue to match her eyes. But the food tastes like ashes in her mouth, even the Dornish sun cannot warm her, and the scent of the horses turns her stomach, which is unusual. She does meet the Princess Elia, though. The woman is delightful, two-and-twenty, a delicate beauty. She doesn’t look as fragile as Lorra expected, but maybe it’s because _she_ ’s the one who’s falling apart inside, right now. Elia is kind and good, and the first night in Sunspear, Lorra and Ravella share her bed, and Lorra is able to share a few tales about Storm’s End, and Robert and Father.

Ravella says: "Lord Robert is so handsome. You’re lucky, Princess."  
"Elia, please. You’re to stay with us in Storm’s End, aren’t you? Elia is fine… Lorra, please, I want to know more about your brother. I wish I could ease his suffering, and yours."  
"Rob wouldn’t let you," says Lorra. The Princess frowns. "He’s not good at comforting people, or letting himself be comforted. We can have each other, though. And Renly -- Renly is our younger brother, and he’s adorable, and now he doesn’t..."  
_Now he doesn’t have a mother anymore_ , Lorra almost says, and bites her tongue for it.

They eat a meager breakfast together, Baratheons and Martells, with Ravella and nigh a score of Dornish noblemen and women. The focus is on Princess Elia, who appears to be the darling of Sunspear the way Robert is the darling of Storm’s End. And Robert… Lorra would mistake her brother for _bashful_ , this morning, if she didn’t know he’s simply brooding. Mourning -- they’re mourning, because the wound is so fresh, and came so very suddenly… Were they at Storm’s End, Lorra has no doubt Rob would have gone hunting already, to vent his sorrow on deers and foxes, but now they’re stuck here, in Sunspear, for a wedding that has the feeling of a funeral. She hopes Princess Elia doesn’t suffer from it; she hopes _she_ doesn’t suffer from it, once they’re home -- if they ever make it home, if coming back to how life was before is even possible.

Elia’s father is also dead, and so her brother Doran, heir to Sunspear, is the one to give her away. The sun is shining bright, the heat inside the septry is suffocating, but it’s somehow worse once everything is over and they’re outside. The sea is calm, almost provocatively so. Lorra doesn’t ask the Princess about it, but she knows her people haven’t stopped finding _Windproud_ flotsam, down by the white beach, coffers filled with Mother’s clothes and the many treasures she’d brought for the Martells. There’s no salvaging the dresses, the food has gone bad, and the gemstones disappear.

They waste no time before preparing to leave, after Robert is wedded and bedded. Lorra knows enough about the ways of grown men and women to _know_ what must’ve happened between her brother and Elia, and watches for unpleasant signs of discontent, the morning after, but there’s none. The Princess welcomes Lorra into her chambers as warmly as she did the day before, and they watch as her coffers are packed for the journey. They’re returning home by sea, and Lorra doesn’t want to, but she’s eager to be home once more, to sleep in her own bed and hold Renly; she’s eager to reunite with Maester Cressen, because maybe the old man can make Stannis feel better, and make Robert smile, and handle the King. Maybe Lorra doesn’t have to leave; maybe she can stay with Robert and Elia, and Renly. More than anything else, she must protect Renly.

This new ship is a Dornish one, the _Aliandra_. The Princess assures them she’s the safest galley in her fleet -- nothing but the very best for Elia. A hundred Dornish oarsmen board it, along with twelve Dornish nobles, Prince Oberyn included. Elia’s party, to stay with her in Storm’s End for some time before following the Prince on a trip in Essos. Lorra wishes they’d cancel the whole thing, because her father and mother are dead. There are bigger concerns, though. She doesn’t sleep, the night before they’re set to leave, and freezes in place when times comes to board.

Robert isn’t happy about it. Lorra is thankful for the private dock, later, but on that morning she’s just _scared_.  
"Get on the ship!"  
"I won’t."  
Stannis is somewhere nearby, arm linked with Ravella’s as they prepare to board, and his face grows redder and redder the longer they delay him.  
Robert, himself, is growing purple.  
"The season of storms is over!"  
"It wasn’t over a fortnight ago!" Were Mother here, she could make Robert _understand_ , but Mother’s dead. "Rob, let me go by land, _please_. I won’t be able to sleep, on the ship, I feel _sick_..."  
"We don’t have time for that! Lorra, Crone’s dry cunt!"  
"Robert, your wife is listening," Stannis dryly says, and Robert’s mood grows even worse.  
He takes Lorra by the arm, roughly. He’s got a bad temper, her brother, but he’s never lost it with _her_ , not really, and so Lorra is squealing and screaming before they’re even halfway up the ramp. Loud enough to attract the eyes of everyone on board, loud enough to make Rob let go of her.  
She wears rolled-up sleeves for the rest of the day, making everyone look at the purple and red, until she remembers Elia.

The _Aliandra_ finally reaches Storm’s End. The fleet grew along the way, with the _Morningstar_ come from Tarth with the lord aboard, the _Green Jewel_ of Estermont, the _Lady Swan_ and the _Queen Argella_ and the _Orys’ Hand_. A tiny boat comes to fetch Robert from the _Aliandra_ , and Lorra struggles her way in, because her need to be on land -- home! -- is almost overwhelming. Both she and Robert jump into the sea, when only a dozen feet are left, and they’re holding onto each other and running, almost like children, before Lorra can remember that he forced her to board the bloody ship and she doesn’t like him anymore. Maester Cressen runs down to meet them, tears welling in his eyes, and embraces them like a father. Lorra allows herself to cry more than she ever did in Dorne, soaking her pillow through and through and dreaming of storms.

("I apologize," says Robert. "I’m sorry."  
"I bet you are."  
"I just wanted us to go home as fast as possible, Lorry, I’m sorry."  
"I heard you the first time."  
"Lorra!"  
"Are you getting angry, Rob?"  
"Just give me a smile. Come on, Lorry, just a smile. You have Mother’s smile, you know that?"  
"You hurt me. I was _scared_."  
"I’m sorry, Lo, I’m sorry. I got angry, I’m sorry."  
"Aye. What if Prince Rhaegar is like that?"  
"He won’t be. He better not be, or I swear..."  
"I want gold for a new riding outfit."  
"Aye, aye."  
Lorra smiles.)

The voyage from Sunspear exhausted Elia -- the Lady of Storm’s End in truth, now. Lorra’s new sister takes a whole day to recover, resting in the chambers Mother had prepared for her before they left. A lifetime ago, it seems. Robert is busy with Father’s… Robert is busy with _his_ bannermen. Stannis disappears somewhere in the belly of the castle. And, even though she missed Renly sorely while they were in Dorne, Lorra discovers that she cannot look at her youngest brother without breaking into tears, and so leaves him in the care of his septa. It should be Kella, the one who reared the boys and Lorra, but Kella is dead. She does promise Renly never to leave him, though, but his babbling is unbearable. He doesn’t know; he won’t remember; Lorra cannot spend time with him, not just yet. Instead, she pours her energy into helping Elia settle.

Elia is eager to learn everything she can about Storm’s End, and Lorra is eager to show her. It’s akin to re-learning how to walk after breaking a leg. Together with Elia, she wanders around the castle and says _This was my Father’s study_ or _This where my lady Mother would come to read with Stannis in winter_ or _This is where Renly walked for the first time_ or _Those where the rooms of my grandmother the Princess Rhaelle_ , to which Elia says: "Was she very beautiful, your grandmother?" And Lorra has to be honest and say: "I don’t remember." She won’t allow herself to forget her father and mother, though. Father can never be forgotten, Lorra doesn’t think so; they resemble him so much, with the night-black hair and the blue eyes, the strong jaw and thick eyebrows, the proud mouth. It’s Mother who could easily fade away. Warm brown hair, freckles, green eyes… But Renly’s eyes can be mistaken for green in the right light, though, and there’s a gap between Lorra’s front teeth, and Mother told her once that she had the same at her age. That’s something; that’s a beginning, even though everything has ended already.

/

Winter settles in, after Robert’s wedding. The gap between Lorra’s front teeth closes, but Renly’s eyes stay that unique shade of blue-green, and she loves him for it. Prince Oberyn and his Dornish entourage leave, as do the nobles that had come to pay homage to Robert and confirm him as Lord of Storm’s End. Lorra, herself, is confirmed as Prince Rhaegar’s future bride. The King has offered -- no, the King has _demanded_ that she journey to King’s Landing in the coming year, somewhere between thirteen and fourteen, to attend his wife the Queen, meet her betrothed, and prepare herself for her wedding. Looking forward to her trip north gives Lorra something to do, at least; as does, on the first day of 280, the news that Elia is with child. There’s a warmth between Robert and his wife that could almost remind Lorra of Father and Mother, _almost_ , if she wasn’t aware of how… indiscreet her brother sometimes is. But Robert is often away, and Lorra hears more love when the people of Storm’s End say _Lady Elia_ than _Lord Robert_. And that love increases tenfold when, in the middle of the year, Elia is delivered of a daughter.

"It’s so bitterly cold," says Elia.  
"Hardly," says Lorra, tightening her furs around her. It’s not as cold as it could be, but it’s snowing, and Lorra has lost everything that was dear to her. There’s snow in the practice yard, the waters of the bay are freezing, and Robert won’t let her go on rides anymore, not since last moon’s turn, when she twisted her ankle. Nevermind that it was the very first time Lorra had any kind of accident while riding; Robert is lord and master, now. At least it gives her time for Elia and the babe. "Can I hold Ella?"  
Argella Baratheon, a Queen’s name. Elia’d suggested _Cassana_ , in private, but Lorra’s chest had ached, and she didn’t want to imagine how Robert might have reacted. Happily, or angrily; there was no in-between, not since he was the Lord and couldn’t shirk his duty as easily.

Watching Robert play with Ella makes Lorra wonder about the bastard he sired in the Vale; she makes the mistake of asking him about it. By the next moon, Mya Storm is settled at Greenstone with a septa, a nurse of her own, with a knight to watch over the merry lot. From Stannis, Lorra soon learns that _Elia_ was the one who arranged the whole thing, not Robert. And she _adores_ Elia, but has the unkind thought, for a second, that Greenstone might soon be overrun. Robert loves Elia; love is sweet, but it won’t change a man’s nature.

The night before she’s to leave for King’s Landing, Lorra dreams of her mother.  
_I can go to King’s Landing myself,_ Lady Cassana is saying, _and bring Stannis._  
_Do you really think our Lorra would like that?  
__Not likely. But I’m her mother. I won’t let harm come to her._

Mother is dead, and Stannis won’t come to King’s Landing. Instead, Lorra is offered Prince Oberyn, returned from Essos. She kisses Elia, Renly and Ella, embraces Maester Cressen, is half-crushed by Robert, and exchanges a sharp nod with Stannis. They leave by land, she and the Prince and Ravella, returned from her family’s castle to accompany Lorra north. Snow covers the kingsroad, and Prince Oberyn grumbles about it every day, until an exasperated Ravella says: _Why did you come, then?_  
_I owed my sister a favor_.  
Some days after that, Lorra wakes up to find her first moonblood has come.

Lorra’s first meeting with the Mad King goes remarkably smoothly. He welcomes her as his cousin, offers his condolences for the _Windproud_ … and then blames the Dornish, shooting Prince Oberyn a hostile look behind Lorra’s shoulder. She’s next introduced to Lord Tywin, the Hand of the King, who says: _Your father was a remarkable man_ , and means: _There’s nothing remarkable about_ **_you_**. Lorra knows his daughter could have been Rhaegar’s wife, were it not for Lorra. The girl, Cersei, is with her father in the city, and follows Lorra around throughout her first day in the Red Keep, introducing her to every lord and lady. She’s barely a year older than Lorra, but she knows it, and soon enough the formal _My lady_ is replaced with _Lor_ or _Hey, You_. Lorra doesn’t mind Cersei, though; she’s beautiful, and they let her do whatever she desires, like she’s a Princess anyway.

And Cersei is clever. The Prince returns from a stay on Dragonstone a week after Lorra’s arrival in the city; that morning, Cersei invites Lorra to come _gardening_ with her. The gardens of the Red Keep are snowed-in, but some flowers can be found in the snow… and people can slip, and clothes can get soaked, and hair can get messy. This is where the Prince stumbles upon them, walking arm in arm with his mother the Queen.  
"Is this…?"  
"This is."  
Before Lorra can look at Cersei, the Prince has removed his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders.

Lorra’s teeth have yet to stop clattering from the cold, an hour later, when she takes a seat opposite Rhaegar’s in the Queen’s solar. Cersei has been gently, politely sent away, and Lorra is facing her betrothed for the first time. He’s… Why, Rhaegar is handsome, but in an unnerving way. The purple eyes, the hair of silver-gold, it’s fascinating on paper but a bit unsettling in reality. But he’s kind and gentle, a bit like Elia, and he seems interested in what Lorra has to say, and she loves him for it. He makes her feel wanted, useful, beautiful.

Such afternoons become commonplace. The Prince even invites Lorra on a few rides along the road to Rosby, chaperoned by Lady Stokeworth and Ser Gerold of the Kingsguard. He frowns when Lorra challenges him to a race, though. He says: "I would never risk my lady’s safety." _Boring_ , Lorra means to say, but instead: "Of course." It’s during the afternoon following such a ride that Lorra hears Prince Oberyn is leaving, bound for Storm’s End, because Elia is pregnant, and this second pregnancy is proving difficult. From Stannis’s letter, she learns that even Cressen is showing a bit of worry.

Prince Viserys is a difficult child, unlike Renly, but Lorra soon learns how to make him giggle and laugh, the way every boy his age should. The city lives in fear of King Aerys; so does Queen Rhaella ( _Naerys over Visenya_ ). It’s the first time Lorra is confronted to an unhappy marriage, and her pity for the Queen mixes with fear of how Rhaegar might be, in a few decades’s time. But right now, in the dead of winter, he warms his mother’s heart, and Lorra decides she’s in love with him. She can be a Queen for the ages.

("Would you like to show me Summerhall, my Prince? The Queen says you spend a lot of your time at the castle."  
"Not yet, sweet Lorra. Maybe after we are wed, yes?"  
"We must go to Harrenhal, after we are wed. You have to win Lord Whent’s tourney for me.")

Lorra turns fourteen in a flurry, as people converge on King’s Landing from the North to Dorne for her wedding. Robert arrives with Stannis and Renly, who is four and _might_ remember when he’s aged, he says. Robert is like a fish in favorite waters, a lord in the city; Stannis is annoyed, although he does offer Lorra his best smile. She needed it; the Prince has grown somewhat... distant as of late, ever since the King picked a date for the ceremony, but she didn’t have time enough to worry about that, as the Queen’s seamstresses fitted her for new dresses, black and red and gold and blue, until her feet ached from standing.

The gown isn’t anything Lorra is used to wearing; it leaves her shoulders bare. Samite in bright whites and soft gold, a collar of Myrish lace that brushes her ears -- it tickles -- and, wrapped around her neck like a rope of gold, a collar shaped like the antlers of the Baratheon stag, heavy like a stone. She can feel the cold of it under thin lace, and the antlers keep poking into her skin. But the result is gorgeous, Lorra has no doubt. She’s given little heeled, golden slippers, and her brothers present her with the Baratheon cloak, on the big day. Mother’s cloak; Princess Rhaelle’s cloak, and now hers, if only for a day.

Lorra never did care much for the Seven, no matter how much Septa Kella told her to pray and be _good_. Walking into the Great Sept of Baelor, though, she’s taken aback. Statues of the Seven tower above her, and Lorra has never felt more beautiful than on this day, walking toward her prince on Robert’s arm. And the crowd! Lannister red and Tyrell green, gemstones and silk and furs, bright smiles. The High Septon, in crystal and white; and Prince Rhaegar, in purple to match his eyes, black and red of House Targaryen, whispering _My Princess_ in her ear.

She has to ride side-saddle, as they return to Maegor’s Holdfast from the sept. It’s cold, and bright snow has been falling on the city throughout morning, but people have come in blurring numbers to behold the new Princess of Dragonstone, with cheering and singing. Flowers are thrown from windows, trampled underfoot by the horses, catching fabric and clinging to Lorra’s Targaryen cloak, a winter rose landing in her lap.  
"They like you!" bellows Robert, far behind. Crones and daughters are cheering for him, just as loud as they’re cheering for Rhaegar. "Stannis, put a smile on your bloody face!"

The feast is torture, because Lorra has never been one to sit idle. Her leg is shaking, she won’t stop tugging at her narrow sleeves, and eventually the ally she had in Robert disappears, because her brother has been drinking with Lord Tyrell and isn’t good for anything else, now. Stannis appears miserable, seated between two Hightower daughters; Lorra decides to focus on her new husband, because this is her wedding day, and Stannis is always miserable, anyway.  
She’s traded her wedding gown for a simpler one in Targaryen red, and Rhaegar wears black. A perfect match, and Lorra smiles.

Lorra doesn’t unclench her jaw until the morning after. Her wedding night goes… She doesn’t know how it was supposed to go, but there was no hurt or crying, and once they were done her Prince didn’t go. He didn’t touch her, and put covers and furs between them, but Lorra was glad for his presence. Maybe that meant he loved her; maybe that meant he is happy she's his wife, the way Robert is happy with Elia, the way Father and Mother were happy together. As dawn rose, Rhaegar had even spoken of Summerhall, and the children they’d have.

Rhaegar means to leave for Dragonstone as soon as they can, but in the meantime Lorra enjoys her new status as Princess. She’s given rooms twice as large as the ones her lady Mother had on Storm’s End, silk and furs, a household and the wife of some minor lordling to preside over it. And the Kingsguard! A knight in white is always following her. Sometimes, it’s old Harlan Grandison, and they speak of Storm’s End and the sea and her brothers. Sometimes, it’s Arthur Dayne, and they speak of her stay in Dorne, however short, and of Princess Elia.

Those who’d come for the wedding depart, including her brothers. Robert is eager to return home, for Elia’s time nears, and they’re hoping for a son. Lorra is left with Ravella, Cersei, and dozens of others, who stay in her company for a day or a week; Lord Tyrell’s sisters, Lord Hightower’s daughters, and many Waynwood sisters, whose uncle is the Lord of the Vale. Some like to sew and sing and dance; some like to hunt and ride, some like to babble about marriage and children, some are here because a father or brother or cousin asked.

Lorra prepares to leave for Dragonstone mostly on her own, though -- and then Rhaegar announces that he can show her Summerhall. _It’s ready_ , he says, and Lorra doesn’t understand what in a burned-down castle must be _prepared_ , but Rhaegar is elated, which is rare enough that Lorra won’t pry. They’ve settled into a routine, with her Prince coming to her bed every second night, and Lorra is content to ignore the Grand Maester’s warning that a pregnancy at her age might be dangerous; she’s a Baratheon, and Baratheons are strong, and if _Elia_ could survive childbirth, then so can she.

They make good time to Summerhall, and Lorra doesn’t understand what’s so impressive about it. She has to sleep in a tent, and the few she brought on the journey to keep her company (Ravella, Denyse Hightower, Annara Farring and Falyse Stokeworth) are impossibly vocal about how much they dislike the place. Worse yet, news reached them on the way that Elia has given birth to a boy, Lyonel, and now lingers near death.  
_I want us to stop by Storm’s End_ , Lorra says, one night, but to her plight Rhaegar only answers: _We are expected on Dragonstone, my sweet_.

Robert writes to say that Elia should live, according to Cressen, and Lorra is glad for it. She would never have forgiven her Prince otherwise, no matter what he makes her feel when they lay together, no matter how much she dreams of having a son who can be king, one day, and shower favors and honors on his Baratheon cousins. And she dreams of daughters, because House Targaryen has not had a princess -- a princess of the blood -- since the Queen’s own birth, and surely her goodmother would be glad for little granddaughters, children for Viserys to play with.

Lorra is sick like a dog on the crossing to Dragonstone, but oh…! It doesn’t have that much in common with Storm’s End, except maybe during the hard autumn storms, but it’s very much like Estermont, like the Greenstone of her mother’s birth, if a bit colder. The wind, the sea, the very land is howling, and soon Lorra has forgotten how dreadful the ship was. She explores the castle, with dark towers and covered passageways and the muddy courtyard, listens as Rhaegar describes for her the history of Aegon’s Garden and the room with the Painted Table. He gives her rooms that used to be Queen Visenya’s, according to legend, and Lorra’s very breathing comes more easily. Dragonstone is the realm of Rhaegar, gargoyles, sheep and merchant galleys bound for Driftmark. No mad king, no sad queen, no _stink_ like in the city, and oh! Lorra has missed the salt breeze of the sea like the sweetest perfume. It’s how Mother smelled, that and lemons and hot bread, and Lorra would be content never to leave the island. Here she can ride and hunt, shooting ahead of aging Harlan Grandison, who never bothers with telling her to slow down.

Lady Denyse is the first to notice, with her brothers and sisters and nephews and younger cousins. They’re sitting in the shade of Aegon’s Garden, and Denyse leans forward when they find themselves alone, because Lady Falyse has scratched her palm on a thorny rose and gone in search of the maester. Bored Lady Annara followed, which leaves only Ravella, who knows Lorra’s every secret anyway.  
"My princess," says Denyse, "once the maester has convinced our good Falyse that he needn’t amputate that injured hand, I reckon _you_ should have a chat with him."  
"Whatever for?"  
"Oh, just a chat."

The ravens bearing news of Lorra’s pregnancy don’t go out, not just yet. She and Rhaegar lay together on the Conqueror’s bed, looking at the dusty canopy. Crowned dragons, fire and fury, the colors faded away by time.  
Rhaegar says: "I’ve never been this happy, my love. My brave Lorra. I’ve dreamed of this."  
"You have?" Lorra has little time for _dreams_. "But how can you be sure?"  
"King Jaehaerys bid my father and mother wed because a witch had told him the marriage would produce a prince of prophecy."  
… And she doesn’t have time for prophecy.  
"Are you that prince?"  
"I long thought so, but no." Rhaegar’s finger traces intricate patterns on the flat skin of her belly. A tiny dragon is somewhere in there, slumbering for now. "Not I, not Viserys, not any of the Queen’s dead sons. But ours, Lorra..."  
So her prince is convinced the child in her belly has some grand destiny. It could be worse.  
But then, Rhaegar continues: "I dreamed of the Conqueror and his sisters, and then I dreamed of my children. Our children. They were one and the same, I saw it. And Visenya was born first, as you know."

Lorra doesn’t have any dreams of any prophecy, after this. Instead, she has terrible nausea and headaches, and her temper is suddenly worthy of Robert’s. It’s made worse once King Aerys summons them back to King’s Landing, ostensibly so that Grand Maester Pycelle can watch over her during her pregnancy. Rhaegar is despondent -- _You must have Visenya on Dragonstone, you must_ \-- and Lorra is made sicker by her day at sea. Her women are getting on her nerves, and even little Prince Viserys becomes annoying. She’s back in smelly King’s Landing, locked away in the Red Keep, already in confinement.

They never speak of the King, but Lorra knows her prince doesn’t get along with his father. Because the man is mad, he is, and in the coming moons the leash he’s been keeping Rhaegar on grows shorter. Denyse and Ravella go home to marry, the harsh winter makes nigh any outing impossible, and Lorra is left with only the Queen and sneering Cersei to spend her days with, because Robert and Elia are busy with Ella and Lyonel. She misses Renly, old Cressen, Stannis; she even misses her childhood bedroom, on the days where her back and neck ache. She makes note to ask Rhaegar if they can visit her brothers, once the child has come. Renly is sure to make a wonderful uncle.

 _After Visenya is born_ , Rhaegar promises, _we can spend the rest of winter in Storm’s End, should you like it_.  
Visenya is not born.

/

Rhaegar is able to convince the King that his first grandchild _must_ come into the world on Dragonstone, somehow; the Dragonstone of legend, cradle of the Conqueror, shrouded in Valyrian magic and smoke. Thus, at the end of her seventh month of pregnancy, Lorra clutches Lady Annara’s hand as they board the _Aegon’s Pride_. The very name makes her uneasy -- Windproud, Aegon’s Pride, proud Aegon, Windproud. The weather doesn’t hold during the crossing, and the storm is raging when they dock on Dragonstone. Old Ser Harlan and handsome Arthur Dayne, who followed on the King’s orders to attend the child’s birth, carry Lorra to her chambers in the Stone Drum. There’s already blood on her skirt when they arrive, and Lorra has never felt more dizzy. The ship has made everything worse; it’s the ship, the crossing, seafaring has never agreed with her, not since…  
Oh, but there is _blood_.

Lorra is told she called out for her mother, in her fevers, called out for her father and brothers, for Maester Cressen and Princess Elia, Ravella and Denyse, older and so wise. But there was only a maester whose name she doesn’t know, midwives whose faces she’s never seen, two Kingsguard and one prince, who knelt by her bedside and clutched her bony hand and, when finally the babe came out and screamed at the world, asked: _Is she healthy?  
_Not a she. A boy, named Aegon in haste and taken away, because his first day might be his last.

She’s dying.  
She knows this, because her body is _burning_ and stupid, loud Falyse Stokeworth won’t stop weeping, and Lady Annara is thin-lipped at her bedside, half-praying and half-glaring at the woman in the corner, the wet nurse, who brought the new Prince here, thinking his screaming might help or wake or heal Lorra. It doesn’t. She’s vaguely aware of _something_ crying, but it could be Renly or Viserys, it could be the children at the Water Gardens in Dorne, it could be Falyse or it could be her, white and bleeding in Queen Visenya’s bed.  
She lives; they live.

Lorra wakes up to hostile white light. She learns that Lady Falyse has made herself sick in her worry; she learns that Rhaegar has returned to King’s Landing and left her to recover here, and that she’s been in and out for a week. They were convinced she wouldn’t live, they were, and her brother -- Annara doesn’t say which one -- is on his way from Storm’s End. And her son…  
"Bring me Aegon," Lorra says. The girl she hears cannot be her; this one is tired, weak, her throat raw from screaming.  
Annara bites her lip, then: "Jaehaerys, Princess. The Prince, he..."  
"We agreed on Aegon." They’d agreed on Visenya, actually. Visenya, then Aegon, then Rhaenys, the dragon of Targaryen, the Conqueror and his sisters. But you cannot trust dreams, Lorra _knows_ you cannot trust dreams, so why did Rhaegar? "We agreed on Aegon, why change that? Is something wrong? Is he..."  
"The little prince is… sickly, Princess. Your brother, Stannis, he’s bringing a maester with him -- your family’s maester?"  
"Stannis -- _Stannis?!_ \-- is coming here?"

("You didn’t have to come here."  
"Falyse Stokeworth told us you were calling for Mother in your ordeal."  
"Falyse Stokeworth is stupid. I..."  
"Your husband left you."  
"Rhaegar has important matters to attend to, he..."  
"More important than his wife and babe? Do you know what they say, in bloody King’s Landing? They say the Princess of Dragonstone is dying on her island."  
"I’m not. It’s not my island, it’s Rhaegar’s."  
"Aye. Where is he?")

Her brother stays with her on Dragonstone for a month. He doesn’t pretend to be happy about it, which is a nice change from Lady Annara and the rest of Lorra’s household. And she’s glad to be reunited with Maester Cressen; the old man bows to her and says _Princess_ , and they laugh; Stannis doesn’t, but then he’s never laughed. And Cressen, with the maester of Dragonstone, nurses Aeg… -- No, _Jaehaerys_ back to health, and eventually they bring him to her. Lorra realizes that she hadn’t _longed_ for him; she was busy sleeping and crying and drinking milk of the poppy for the sting in her middle, not sparing the boy any thought, and so holding Jaehaerys makes her break down into tears. Angry tears.

They say Baelor Breakspear looked more Dornish than Valyrian, the way Robert’s children have Elia’s golden skin and dark eyes. They say Daeron the Drunken had sand-coloured hair, something very common; they say Prince Duncan had the dark hair of his Blackwood mother. This is what Maester Cressen is saying, anyway, as they ride into the Red Keep with her very much Baratheon-looking Targaryen boy. Jaehaerys has night-black hair, eyes of sparkling blue like her own, eyes like Robert and Father. Rhaegar was right; this isn’t the prince he was promised, this isn’t the Conqueror returned. But Cressen, a hand on her shoulder, has promised he would (should?) be her last child, if she values her life. He’s spoken at length, given advice no girl of fourteen should hear, recommended that she keep to her own bed for the next moon, and the moon after that. He spoke of death.

It’s an ordeal to stand while Jaehaerys is presented to King Aerys and the queen; it’s an ordeal to watch the King hold the baby so close to his crazed eyes and the deadly blades of the Iron Throne. It’s an ordeal to stand up and walk and breathe in fully; Lorra collapses as soon as they’re alone, she and Stannis and Maester Cressen and the baby. Queen Rhaella has promised to visit soon with Viserys, but the idea is unbearable; Lorra has to _sleep_. Stannis has to carry her to her bedchambers, and they’re both very unhappy about it.

Cressen runs into Pycelle, and Stannis runs into Rhaegar. The maesters disappear somewhere with her baby, followed by Ser Barristan; Lorra’s husband and brother stay with her, Rhaegar kneeling by her bed and Stannis looking out the window.  
"I feared I’d lost you," says Rhaegar; Lorra knows to look for Stannis’s clenched jaw, and sees it.  
It’s the first time Lorra even _sees_ her prince since her labor began, since Visenya was born Jaehaerys instead, leaving her body aching and broken, and it’s not _enough_ for him. What kind of man frowns his nose at the birth of a son?

The King chooses Ser Harlan to guard her son, but the knight doesn’t wake up, on the fourth day of his new posting, passing away in his sleep. A peaceful death, like her lord Father deserved, and Lorra is crying for Lord Steffon more than she’s crying for Harlan Grandison. For the first time, Lorra wishes Stannis were the older brother, the one wed to Elia. That way, maybe Rob could become a knight of the Kingsguard and she wouldn’t be so desperately alone in the city. At least, he’s promised to visit the city, after Harrenhal, to meet Jaehaerys.

She can never be like she was before. She cannot even bend down, or walk fast, or ride. Cressen says her body might heal with time, and Pycelle says it might not, but they both say this: _No more children_ , and she has single-handedly destroyed Rhaegar’s hopes for a prophecy. They barely talk about it, she and him, about children and dreams, Visenya, Aegon and Rhaenys. _Jaehaerys has to be enough_ , Lorra says, _Jaehaerys_ **_is_ ** _enough_. But Rhaegar doesn’t answer. He leaves for Harrenhal with everyone who’s anyone, and Lorra is left behind with her son, the Queen and Viserys.

Who cares about a tourney? The grandest of the century, with a thousand in attendance -- who cares about it? Lorra stays in King’s Landing with her son, her son who’s a future king, and does her best to keep her mind away from Harrenhal. There’s much to do in King’s Landing, with the king absent, the weather kinder, and the Queen not constantly looking over her shoulder. She and Lorra walk together in the gardens, Lorra with a cane that she only uses in private, some miserable thing Cressen gave her before he left. Sometimes, Lorra pictures a sword instead.

Jaime Lannister arrives in King’s Landing a month after Rhaegar leaves, chin high and green eyes ablaze. The heir to Casterly Rock, Cersei’s golden twin, now a brother of the Kingsguard, standing before the Iron Throne where his father is sitting. He wears the white of a sworn brother, and doesn’t flinch when the Lord Hand curtly orders the room cleared. Outside, holding (leaning) onto Annara Farring’s and Lady Falyse’s arms, Lorra is met with a smiling Cersei, in red and silver, shooting glances at the great doors.  
"I think your father is having a stroke, Lady Cersei," says Annara.  
And Falyse: "Who’s to inherit Casterly Rock, if not Jaime?"  
They know about the Lord Hand’s youngest child, of course, but to speak of him is a sure way of earning the man’s wrath and so they don’t. And the boy is what, five? Ten? Cersei says: "Me, of course."

Ser Jaime is of Lorra’s own age, and liking him comes easy. There’s a somewhat arrogant edge to his smile that isn’t unlike Robert’s, but he’s gentle with the Queen and doesn’t mind that Prince Viserys follows him around everywhere. Most importantly, he says nothing when Lorra takes his arm, leaning on him for support, although in the coming days both Cersei and the Lord Hand eye Lorra the way one might look at one’s sick horse, thinking of putting it down. One’s despised sick horse, that is. Even that doesn’t last; the stupid tourney at Harrenhal comes to an end, and Lorra has to settle back into her old routine, but she has Robert’s visit to look forward to.  
But not for very long.

/

Nobody thought about writing King’s Landing with news of Rhaegar’s victory, because everyone of significance was there already…. Why, except Lorra. Had she been stronger on her feet, had she followed her prince there, had she watched the joust… No matter. She wasn’t there, and Robert, coming into the city ahead of the royal party, shares with her everything she ought to know. Rhaegar won, which isn’t surprising. Rhaegar won, and then he named Catelyn Tully as his Queen of Love and Beauty, dropping a crown of flowers into her lap even as her father and betrothed sat beside her.

Who the _fuck_ is Catelyn Tully?

 _It’s nothing_ , Falyse says, _you weren’t there and our Prince simply_ had _to choose a woman to crown, it’s nothing_. Lorra mostly ignores her, after this, brooding over the slight with the more vengeful Annara, writing Ravella and even Lady Denyse, who’s since wed a Redwyne cousin and lives freely, away from the stink of King’s Landing. She writes Stannis, though Rhaegar and his father have returned before her ravens can, and King’s Landing is once more in uproar. Literally: Tywin Lannister gathers daughter and household, returning to his golden West, and for a few days Lorra and her son are kept awake by the mad rambling of King Aerys, screaming long into the night about some hidden conspiracy. Lorra wishes lightning would strike him.

And her Rhaegar… She’s been nothing but perfect for him, in this last year; she’s given him a son. He may not be the strongest baby, but Elia’s Lyonel was just as sickly, and now he’s _thriving_. So why shun her? Why crown another-  
If Lorra could get his Tully girl alone-  
She’s beautiful, they say, a worthy lady, but hasn’t Lorra been a worthy Princess, wife and partner? Hadn’t she done her duty by the realm?  
Not according to her Prince.  
He returns home and goes to his mother, but one look from Lorra dissuades him from approaching _her_.

Lorra, fourteen and sister to Stannis Baratheon of the grinded teeth, ignores Rhaegar until he comes to visit her, the week after his arrival, now apparently willing to risk her wrath. She hates wishing they could share a bed, like they used to before Jaehaerys’s birth; she hates that he smiles when he sees her, and she has to smile back, until she remembers the cold fury in her stomach, like brutal autumn storms.  
"My brother told me about your queen." He bows at the greeting, takes a seat by her bed. She ought to be laying down, recovering and worrying about his bloody prophecy, but the King is yelling and Jaehaerys won’t stop crying. "I wish Ser Barristan had unhorsed you."  
"We needed a Queen of Love and Beauty, my love-"  
"You should have brought the flowers to me. To me!"  
Rhaegar _dares_ : "They would have whitered, my love."

If there’s a warning sign, Lorra doesn’t know to look for it.  
The Blackwater freezes over, on the last day of the year; snow covers everything in a heavy blanket that muffles everything, except Lorra’s anger. Robert is stuck in the city, and unhappy about it. He’s like a beast in a cage, looking for proof that his sister has been shamed and not finding any. Elia is expecting his third child, back home. Some days, he and Lorra fight over the wisdom of putting her through another childbirth; some days, they walk together around Maegor’s Holdfast, wearing the black of Baratheon and gossiping, Lady Annara not far behind. Sometimes, Rob disappears with Annara. In those hours Lorra wishes it could be Stannis here with her. Stannis would put Rhaegar back in his place.  
With Tywin Lannister gone, a new Hand arrives from the Reach. This one is Lord Merryweather and, indeed, he isn’t happy about the snow and the bitter wind that entrap King’s Landing.  
Sometimes, Rhaegar comes to her bed, tentatively, and they just lay there, staring at the canopy, a good feet of empty space between them.

On such an evening, once (it’s just a normal day, back then, but in hindsight it becomes ‘just before’), Rhaegar does his best to pleasure her within the new limit of her body. It might have worked, but any warmth Lorra felt is ushered out when he says, between kisses: "We might yet have another."  
Lorra pushes him away from her. _Another?_ Her cane is on the nearby table, despised but much _needed_ ; her moonblood has come only in irregular patches of palest red since Jaehaerys’s birth, and Cressen has warned, Cressen has-  
She’s trusted the old man her entire life; she doesn’t trust Rhaegar, not anymore.  
"You were there for the birth, my Prince. You _saw_. If you want more children, go find yourself a whore on the Street of Silk and sire little Blackfyres aplenty."  
He leaves the next morning for Harrenhal, because Ser Oswell must visit his sick brother. Ser Arthur follows, Dawn shining in the morning light. It’s the last she ever sees of the Kingsguard brothers, but Rhaegar. Oh, Rhaegar...

Before news of Riverrun comes news of Elia, down in Storm’s End. She’s had the Cassana she wanted a few years ago, but mother and daughter barely survived the birth, and once more Cressen is saying: _No more children_. And yet… Girl, boy, girl.  
Visenya, Aegon, Rhaenys. Lorra has never told Rob about Rhaegar’s prophecy, though, and she’s glad for it. And she’s glad her prince isn’t here to steal her joy over Cassana by wishing they had that. Instead, she can dine with her brother in peace, and jokingly suggest brides for Stannis. Robert says Renly should foster in King’s Landing; Lorra says Prince Viserys should foster at Storm’s End, to be away from his father, but it would be cruel to rob the Queen of her last joy.  
They’re dining on salted fish, one night, when the word arrives that Prince Rhaegar has abducted Lysa Tully from Riverrun.

Lysa, not Catelyn. It confuses people, Lorra included, until they can get a clearer picture. Rhaegar, Ser Oswell and Ser Arthur went to Riverrun, not Harrenhal -- he’s been lying from the start. They went to Riverrun, where the wedding of Lady Catelyn to Brandon Stark had just been celebrated, and somehow vanished with the Lady Lysa. The youngest daughter, not as beautiful. She’s of Lorra’s age, fifteen, born late in 266 while Lorra was born early in 267, celebrating her nameday in the eye of this new storm.  
People say they went to Harrenhal with the girl, as was planned; some offer White Harbor, or the Casterly Rock of belligerent Tywin Lannister, or Summerhall or Dragonstone or even Braavos. Nobody knows where Rhaegar is, but everybody knows where the _King_ is, and thus ravens come flying. One from Lord Tully, of course; one from Lord Arryn, whose nephew is (was?) betrothed to Lysa. And one from Elia, although this one is destined to Lorra, and must have been sent before they heard about Rhaegar’s folly. Elia has sent a length of string to show Lorra how much Renly has grown; Lorra might strangle Rhaegar with it.  
She doesn’t have time.

They say Brandon Stark is bound for the capital, bent on getting his wife’s sister back. With him comes Elbert Arryn, who attended the wedding in his uncle’s stead. People say the men’s fury is a sight, but snows delay them, and no righteous fury could match Robert’s.  
Lorra’s brother doesn’t send letters home, doesn’t send his men after Rhaegar, doesn’t offer her the empty comfort she’s been getting from Queen Rhaella.  
No, no.  
Her brother goes to King Aerys, shouting up a storm from the feet of the Iron Throne, until Ser Barristan and Ser Gerold drag him away.

(They say Brandon Stark and Elbert Arryn were near Duskendale when they heard of Lord Robert’s arrest, and thought it prudent not to proceed. They say the Princess of Dragonstone begged for her brother’s life, kneeling in front of King Aerys. They say the King doomed himself then and here, when he openly mocked his son’s wife, his grandson’s mother, and sent for his pyromancers, because the Stormlord meant to fight to prove his innocence.)

They drag her out. Jon Darry and Prince Lewyn, they drag her out, away from the Iron Throne, away from Robert who’s burning and screaming and dying, away from the silent onlookers and the cackling Mad Aerys. Lorra is almost strong enough to fight back, almost, but they’re stronger, and she’s left to howl like a mad beast, until Ser Jon places a gloved hand on her mouth and says: "Foolish child, do you want His Grace to stop looking at the fire to look at _you_ ?" And she does, she does, she does, she has to _destroy_ him, avenge-

She doesn’t ask what they do with Robert’s body. She doesn’t ask for anything, really, after the King confines her to her chambers. Her brother committed treason, he says, so what of her? What of Stannis and Renly, what of Elia and her babes? Lyonel would be Lord of Storm’s End now, and he’s not even two years of age. Lorra pictures home, that night, dreams of escaping with Jaehaerys, stealing a ship and hiding in her childhood bedroom. Instead she has to stay here, trembling in her bed, woken in the middle of the night by the Queen’s screams.

No army marches from Storm’s End, because it would mean signing Lorra’s death warrant, but Estermont and Tarth and Swann and Dondarrion have no such fear. Trant and Horpe and Hasty and Wylde, they storm the kingsroad, rather literally. There’s rumors of a host in Dorne, even; rumors of Arryn, Tully and Stark marching on Harrenhal. In the south, they want to avenge Robert; in the north, they want to depose the Mad King and get Lysa Tully back, or maybe just the latter. Lorra doesn’t know; what she does know is that King Aerys is busy with the war he just started, and she has a chance to escape.  
But not without Jaehaerys. The King has answered the silence from Storm’s End with a knight of the Kingsguard to watch over her son day and night, as if he _knew_ Lorra would try and make a run for it. It’s a brotherhood of five, with Arthur Dayne and Oswell Whent gone Seven-know-where, following Rhaegar. Eventually, the King has Ser Gerold sent out to find Rhaegar, while Selmy and Darry and Prince Lewyn prepare the royal army. It leaves Ser Jaime, a boy of fifteen to protect the royal family.

Varys gives her a letter and says it’s from Stannis, but why trust a spider? In the letter, might-be Stannis advises her not to do anything _rash_. And she doesn’t. She dresses in the black of House Baratheon -- never any red, and stares down Ser Jaime over Jaehaerys’s crib, as more and more skirmishes are fought over the land. Grand Maester Pycelle offers her dreamwine, as if to keep her sedated until the war is won, until Rhaegar is back; Lorra takes every cup, but then pours it down her chamberpot. The Queen is with child, the child Aerys forced into her body after he burned Robert; Rhaella and Viserys stay away, in the safety of the Queen’s chambers, but Lorra wanders the Red Keep, looking for ways of escaping. People whisper about some pact between the Stormlanders and the army from Riverrun, while Casterly Rock stays unresponsive. They say Lord Tyrell has called his banners, but who might he side with, they wonder, when five of the Seven Kingdoms have turned on King Aerys?

Her prince returns. Rhaegar, he returns. Without Oswell, Arthur or Lysa, and he won’t say where they are, he won’t say if they’re even _alive_ , but he professes his love of Lorra, his love for Jaehaerys. He doesn’t speak of Robert, or the war that rages beyond King’s Landing, but Lorra knows why he is here and where he is headed to, leading an host of Crownlanders toward Harrenhal. She watches him go, colorful banners disappearing beyond the city, and is scared to find that she doesn’t feel anything, not even when she pictures him dying.  
Which he does -- dying.

/

Brynden Tully, the one they know as Blackfish, slays Rhaegar a stone’s throw from Harrenhal, and Jaehaerys is one dead king away from the Iron Throne. Word of the battle doesn’t reach them until the enemy is a week away. The King… His Merryweather Hand burns, replaced with a pyromancer.

There’s a fortnight, between Rhaegar’s death and the end of the war. They spend it shut away in Lorra’s chambers, with Lady Falyse cooing at Jaehaerys and Lady Annara cooing at Ser Jaime, who appears unimpressed. Lorra cannot bring herself to feel anything for Rhaegar, because she hasn’t even begun to mourn Robert yet. She isn’t even sure that she’s mourned her father and lady Mother. She was twelve, back then, and she’s only fifteen now, but the girl who saw the _Windproud_ disappear below the sea is distant, unreachable. There’s a new girl, now, and this one is dry-eyed as Queen Rhaella mourns for her son. But Rhaella has Viserys to worry about, him and the child in her belly, and she doesn’t break.

They leave for Dragonstone, Rhaella and Viserys and Jaehaerys, the Queen with her pregnant belly, the Prince with his little black kitten, and Lorra’s son crying into the night. Lorra has to stay here, Mad Aerys says, because the Stormlanders are coming up the kingsroad, and nobody knows if they mean to surround King’s Landing or face the enemy north. But Jaehaerys is Aerys’s heir, and Lorra herself is his own kin by marriage and blood. It saves her baby, but not her; in the days after Rhaegar’s death and the enemy’s arrival, the King has Lorra kept at his side, pinching and slapping and punching whenever something angers him. But at least her son is away; at least an end is coming, very soon.

She doesn’t fear Tully, or Arryn, or Stark. She doesn’t fear her own people, come to avenge Robert, or the Dornish that follow them. What she fears is the unknown: Lannister in the west, and Tyrell in the south. It’s been a short war, a very short war, but Lorra is weary of it anyway, dragging her feet and sitting beside the King, watching as he summons his pyromancers, looking out for unattended doors and distracted men. Lorra dreams of Stannis and Renly, Elia and her babes, of the Dornishmen she met a lifetime ago. She dreams of her father, saying: _I don’t want Lorra so close to Aerys_. But Lorra is very close, indeed, when she first hears the King say: Burn them all.

Soon enough, just before dawn, word comes that a Dornish fleet spearheaded by Oberyn Martell aboard the _Aliandra_ took Dragonstone in the name of Lyonel Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End and cousin to Jaehaerys, Third of His Name, rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms, because Aerys is a tyrant who must be deposed. And Tully is at Stokeworth (Lady Falyse nearly collapses at the news), and the Stormlanders bypassed King’s Landing overnight to reach Hayford, but word is Lord Hayford welcomed Lord Estermont and the others under his roof, and that Estermont means to parley with Tully and his lot. Because they aren’t each other’s enemy. The enemy might’ve been Rhaegar, but he’s dead; only Mad Aerys is left, now, the monster who killed Robert.

Another letter comes from might-be Stannis, saying that when Lord Grandison attempted to secure the wreck of Summerhall for the Iron Throne, his men found the girl Lysa, alongside Ser Arthur, Ser Oswell and Ser Gerold. What might Hoster Tully do, if they simply returned his daughter to him? Dishonored, pregnant and dying, eventually miscarrying a girl -- Visenya, might-be Stannis writes that Lady Lysa insisted the child be named _Visenya_ \-- and lingering in agony in Storm’s End, cared for by Elia herself. He writes that Ser Arthur killed Lord Grandison and nigh a dozen others, but that eventually the rebel Lord Caron swooped down upon both sides, and the Kingsguard were taken alive. The King is _enraged_ , of course, and it’s the first time Lorra is truly scared of him, but his wrath isn’t directed toward her. Instead, he summons his fire-loving Hand, and says once more: Burn them all.

There was blood in her bed the last time Lorra saw her brother; now, there’s blood on her arms, on her face and down her neck, blood on the front of her gown, blood on the blades of the Iron Throne and blood on Ser Jaime’s sword, because the pyromancers-  
The King-  
She writes the letters herself, for Tully and Stannis, for Oberyn on Dragonstone, saying: _Crown my son_. Jon Arryn is the first to ride into the city, because maybe they presumed Lorra wouldn’t find him threatening, but they broker a peace with Jaime and his sword between them.

("Where is the King?"  
"King Jaehaerys? On Dragonstone, my lord."  
"And the Lady Lysa?"  
"In Storm’s End, unharmed. She can be returned."  
" _Can_ , my lady? What is that supposed to mean, exactly?"  
"It means King Jaehaerys desires an end to his grandsire’s war. No army marching down the kingsroad -- only up. The man you wanted dead is dead. The King, the Prince..."  
"Who is to rule in King Jaehaerys’s name?"  
Lorra says: "Me, of course.")

Jon Arryn doesn’t let a girl of fifteen years rule for a boy of scant one, Princess or not, but peace is made. Aegon the Unlucky had an Hour of the Wolf; Jaehaerys has an Hour of the Falcon, with fish and suns and fat roses lurking near, but there’s no alternative. Instead of Lysa, Elbert Arryn takes Cersei Lannister to wife. The northern kingdoms cannot be trusted, Stannis warns, but they have Edmure Tully and Benjen Stark and Tyrion Lannister brought to King’s Landing, foster sons for the Queen, who returns from Dragonstone with a new Princess in her arms. And in Storm’s End and Sunspear, Baratheons and Martells are singing the same tune for the first time in decades. Yronwood and Dondarrion, Caron and Fowler, they put aside differences forged in blood to look toward a common future. The daughter of Mace Tyrell is promised to Jaehaerys not a fortnight after her birth, and even as years go by and children age, Lorra cannot shake the feeling that she’s preparing for another war.


End file.
